I was really touched by an article I read in The National yesterday – and thought I’d share it.
Mona Awad, a 42-year old expat Jordanian Christian secretary stood at Abu Dhabi International Airport in the UAE on October 15th waiting for the man she was engaged to marry – whom she had met a month earlier.
He was due to fly in to the Arab Emirates to be united with her. Mona Awad lived with her family in the Tourist Club area of the UAE and the pressures of singledom were taking their toll.
Love as a Way Out
“I was not desperate for a husband as much as I was desperate to leave my family,” Ms Awad told The National. As she’d lived abroad for several years and felt that she had lost touch with her community at home, she had decided to join Shaadi online, an India Matrimonial website. She didn’t sign up to an Arab dating site as she felt that Arabs would think of it as “advertising myself”.
“Foreigners accept the idea [of dating online], but if I married an Arab, he would tell me later ‘did you forget when you advertised yourself to me?” – She revealed.
“Because Arab expats here are mostly Muslims, it is difficult for me to find a husband,” she said. “There is so much pressure inside the house and from society. I’m fed up of living with my family.”
Through Shaadi online, Mona met a man who called himself “Williams James”, a 42-year-old widower with one child.
A Twist in The Tale
As their relationship deepened in the month before their supposed meeting, Mr James told her Ms Awad had to travel to Nigeria to close a business deal before visiting her in the UAE.
Then suddenly, he told her he couldn’t travel to the UAE because he had to pay taxes for signing the contracts. He asked her to help him out and send him US$12,000. She did. He then asked for US$10,000, sent in different amounts to himself and two of his friends, identified as Robert and Samuel, because she could send only up to Dh5,000 a day through Western Union.
Williams James never showed up to meet his Jordanian fiancée. In fact, according to the supervisor of the British Airways flight, on which he was supposed to be traveling, he had not confirmed his booking.
That Sinking Feeling…
After waiting for almost an hour, Mona asked police for help. It soon became evident that she had been cheated out of her life’s savings: Dh110,000 (US$30,000).
The money she sent was the fruit of 22 years of work. After the wire transfers, she was left with Dh70 in her account. She also borrowed Dh5,000 to pay for wedding preparations and paid for every international call to her suitor.
“I cannot say I fell in love with him, but I became emotionally attached to him,” Ms Awad said. “I thought I would finally marry. I also told everyone I would marry soon.” when all was said and done, she told her family that he had been “just playing”.
Words of Wisdom
Dr Ahmad Alomosh, chairman of the sociology department at the University of Sharjah and specialist in crime and families, said the issue had become rife in the UAE, due to the openness of cyber space. Dr Alomosh, who wrote a study on the theme said the extent of the phenomenon in the UAE was not yet known because it is not well studied. This is in partly due to the fact that many victims do not report cases.
Ms Awad, meanwhile, has filed a complaint with the police, who say money transfer records place “Mr James” in Nigeria.
